Car-seal



UNITED STATES PATENT OFFICE.

BENJAMIN J. STURTEVANT, OF ST. PAUL, MINNESOTA.

CAR-SEAL.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 467,387, dated January 19, 1892. Application filed September 2, 1891. Serial No. 404,545. (No model.)

110 aZZ whom it may concern.-

Be it known that I, BENJAMIN J. STURTE- VANT, of St. Paul, in the county of Ramsey and State of Minnesota, have invented a new and Improved Oar-Seal, of which the following is a full, clear, and exact description.

My invention relates to improvements in that class of seals which are secured to cardoors and which must necessarily be broken if the door is opened, thus indicating that the car has been tampered with.

The object of my invention is to produce a cheap seal which may be easily applied to a car, which may be applied and removed without the use of especial tools, and which cannot be opened except by breaking or cutting the shackle or the locket.

To this end my invention consists in certain features of construction and combinations of parts which will be hereinafter described and claimed.

Reference is to behad to the accompanying drawings, forming a part of this specification, in which similar figures of reference indicate corresponding parts in'all the views.

Figure 1 is a broken side elevation of a car having a seal secured to the door. Fig. 2 is an enlarged detail view showing the application of a seal to a car. Fig. 3 is an enlarged detail view of the hook which is secured in the locket. Fig. 4 is a detail sectional view of the locket portion of the seal. Fig. 5 is a plan view of the locket, and Fig. 6 is a detail view of the shackle before it is doubled.

The seal is provided with a locket 10, which may be made of earthenware, cement, glass, or any frangible substance having the necessary strength, and the locket is provided with a top opening 11 and with an internal shoulder 12, which is produced on one side of the locket, the inner wall of the locket sloping gradually from the shoulder to the bottom. A hook 13, which is made of spring metal, preferably steel, is adapted to be inserted in the locket, the hook being doubled at its lower end, as is shown at 14, thus forming a spring-arm 15, which, when pushed into the locket, will spring beneath the shoulder, and the length of which is such that when the free end of the arm is in engagement with the shoulder the lower end of the hook will be in the bottom of the locket. The upper end of the hook is doubled over, as shown at 16, thus forming loop, and alsoforming a terminal arm 17, which extends parallel with the body portion of the hook and the length of which is such that when inserted in the locket its lower end will be about opposite the shoulder 12 of the locket.

The shackle 18 is simply a strip of flexible or malleable metal, preferably tin or sheetiron, having a hole 19 in each end, the hole being large enough to receive the wire of the hook l3.

hen the seal is applied to the car, the strip 18 is passed through the staple 20 of the car 21 and through the staple 20 of the door 22. The upper end of the hook 13 is slipped through the two holes 19 in the shackle, the shackle being first doubled, so that this may be conveniently done, and the hook 13 is then pushed into the locket 10, and when it is once inserted it cannot be removed. The lockets are preferably numbered consecutively-that is to say, all the lockets in use will be numberedand when a car has arrived at its destination the shackle 18 may be cut and the locket preserved, and when it has been kept until it is of no further use in keeping track of a car or for other purposes it is broken, and the hook 13 may be used over again.

The locket and the shackle cost scarcely anything, and as the hook may be used an indefinite number of times it will be seen that the seal is very inexpensive.

Having thus fully described myinvention, I claim as new and desire to secure by Letters Patent-'- 1. A car-seal comprising a flexible shackle, a hook detachably secured to the shackle and having a spring-pressed arm, and a locket adapted to receive the hook, said locket having on one side a shoulder to engage the arm of' thehook,substantiallyasshown and described. 2. A car-seal comprising a flexible shackle having a hole in each end, a hook having one end bent to form a loop adapted to receive the ends of the shackle and having at the opposite end a spring-pressed arm arranged at an angle to thebody portion of the hook, and a locket formed of frangible material and having an internal shoulder to engage the spring-pressed arm of the hook, substantially as shown and described.

BENJAMIN J. STURTEVANT. Witnesses:

J. THEO. MILLER, RICHARD J. MARVIN. 

